Chapter 36
THE AIR IS THICK AND heavy tonight like a storm could break out at any moment. Early September in the French Quarter is quieter, the unrelenting heat keeping tourists away. Thankfully, the alley is mostly empty with fewer people than usual walking through, keeping to themselves.
Mother has Aven, and it’s like I can feel her anxiety from my house. We all want this to work so badly.
Bastian and I look down Pirate’s Alley from the Royal Street side, named after pirate deals Jean Laffitte supposedly made in the new, swampy city. But now, it’s a wide alley with robust, black lampposts and a view of Jackson Square on the other end.
Bastian’s hand is sweaty in mine, but it’s not from the humidity, it’s from what we’re about to do. I smell his cologne, Chanel Pour Monsieur, the same one he wore back when he was just turned, applied on purpose for the occasion.
“It’s okay, it’s not a test,” I say. “We’ll just stand where you remember standing, and we’ll go back and hear what she said.”
But there’s so much at stake. He knows it, I know it. And now that we know who our enemies are, we hope this is the missing piece. Whatever we hear from my grandmother will be the answer we need to this fucked up puzzle.
He runs a nervous hand through his brown locks, his eyes exhibiting that tortured look I’ve come to recognize since I brought him back. The anger, the rage that lies inside him. Dormant most days, but still very real and raw, so close to being let loose like a caged jaguar.
I place a hand over his heart, trying to release an aura of calm over him, but he’s so wound up, I feel the resistance.
“It was farther down.” He points. “Between the Cathedral and the Cabildo. We were against the Cabildo…your grandmother was walking up from Royal Street.”
“Let’s go.” I grab his hand again and lead him all the way down, his feet stopping once we reach the back of the Cabildo.
“Here, yeah. I’m pretty sure it was here.”
I look down the alley where Jackson Square opens up. If it were daytime, we would hear the instruments of the street performers, see psychics set up at their tables.
“Okay, I think you should lean against the wall to keep you from swaying. Remember the last time we did this?”
“You mean when I threw you to the ground and went hysterical, blood tears and all?”
“Yeah, that time.”
“Yep,” he clips, his face hard as stone. “I remember.”
“It was the start of us, Bastian. And you’re not going to bite me this time. This time, there’s nothing traumatic to see.” But my heart suddenly pulses from the idea of seeing my grandmother as a little girl. There’s a buzzing in my stomach at the thought, and he can tell.
“I remember her slightly, she was bossy and bold,” he whispers. “But that’s just when she would come by Nightwalkers with your mom. Why didn’t she ever talk to me again? It makes no sense.”
“I have no idea. But I’m ready. I’m so ready to see her through your eyes.”
Bastian leans against the wall, pulling me hard against him, stealing my breath. My stomach presses against his, his arms snaking around my waist until they clasp at my back.
“I’ve re-read Cassius’s entry a hundred times. I remember being here, the conversation, but what she said in my ear—it’s still blank. God, I’m nervous,” he whispers, his eyes darker than ever, his teeth skating against his bottom lip. “I don’t want you to see me like that, how I used to be.”
I slide my hands up his chest until they stop over his heart. “I love every part of you. And I’m proud of who you are now and what you’ve overcome. And besides, I will be seeing through your eyes. I won’t see you.”
He swallows, eyes scanning my face with what I’ve come to recognize as fear. “What if I didn’t hear? Or I don’t remember? Or it doesn’t work?”
“Then we’ll do what we always do. We’ll figure it out. We’ll find another way. But we have to try this first. Come on, baby,” I say with a wink. “Let go.”
A slow smile spreads on his face at that. “All right, all right.” He laughs, gently placing a kiss on my forehead then holding me tight once more. “Using my own words against me.”
“Worth a shot.” I grin, kissing his chin, but back away from his embrace. “Now. It was a December night in 1956. You had just fed from a drunk man, so you were blood drunk, seriously blood drunk. Close your eyes and go back there.”
He breathes out gently, his minty breath warming my face. “I’m trying to remember, it’s so fuzzy…”
“It’s okay. Can you see my grandmother in your mind? See that little girl, the man under you, your brother. Was there music playing?”
His tongue slides between his lips, his chest falling into a natural rhythm.
“Cassius and I got into an argument when we got home because he was so rude to her, and I thought, ‘She’s just a child.’”
“Good. You were angry, but he was annoyed because she was snooping, snooping where he felt she didn’t belong. Think back there, and I’m going to say the words to go into your memory.”
My legs are so wobbly, I wish we had chairs, but I take a deep breath in, excited to see my grandmother, yet petrified this won’t work.
I slide my hands up his jaw, thumbs on each side of his mouth.
And I can’t help myself, I reach up to brush a kiss against his lips.
His eyes stay closed, but his mouth pulls into a smile, and I whisper, “You can do this.” When I go back in time, it’s really going back in the person’s memory.
So, if Bastian remembers nothing, we are screwed.
“Retrsosum, retrosum. Retrosum, retrosum,” I say like a prayer, and I’m sucked inside quickly, like I’m being slurped through a straw.
It’s hot for December, that’s the first thing I notice.
The wet clothes clinging to Bastian’s back and arms, a white, long-sleeved shirt with scarlet splatters on the wrists.
It’s foggy, like I’m looking through unfocused binoculars, and Bastian is on the ground, looking up between the Cabildo and the Cathedral.
Bastian’s hand is against the Cabildo for support, and someone writhes nearby.
Dixieland jazz plays off in the distance, but the alley is quiet, the heat and sugar making the air smell sweet.
Focus, Bastian, Focus, I beg inside, but his eyes stay on the sky, black and glittering, the blood drunkenness a feeling I’ve never felt.
Like everything is moving at the speed of syrup, slow and thick.
There’s talking as a hand comes into view, pulling Bastian up, the air shooting through his lungs, his eyes widening enough for me to see her. She’s tinier than I had imagined, hand on her hip, face too blurry to make out, yet Bastian tips his hat and slowly says, “Good evening.”
Exactly how he said it in the journal, and hope washes over me. He’s going to remember. This is going to work.
She’s lovely, with her Shirley Temple curls, her little body too fuzzy to make out, so I will Bastian to open his eyes wider, but I’m at his mercy.
“Jesus Christ,” Cassius seethes as Bastian’s eyes blinked repeatedly, trying desperately to focus. “We don’t speak to her.” Cassius looks the same, his long hair, his brown eyes, his cut jaw. A vampiric beauty that never failed him.
“Why? She’s a child.”
“Well for one, you have a man on the ground here, and for two, she’s a witch.”
Bastian thinks about that, eyes focusing on my grandmother as she and Cassius have a discussion Bastian doesn’t seem to comprehend.
But he sees her, really sees her for a moment, at least. Light blue dress, dirty on the skirt, like she had spilled some dinner on her lap.
Blue eyes, the ones I recognize as my own, my grandmother in front of me.
She and Cassius argue, and I strain to hear it, but Bastian’s trying so hard not to fall over, a wave of euphoria hitting him, making every limb tingle in the most pleasurable way, like his veins are floating, like his muscles are rejoicing.
“You’re not supposed to talk to me that way,” my grandmother shouts to Cassius. “I’m Cora Wildes, a true witch, a child witch of Rue Royale, and I’ve never seen that vampire before.”
Something about this statement brings Bastian back to the conversation, and the muscles on his face smile at my grandmother, so wide I can feel the skin over his cheeks tugging.
He starts to fall again, but Cassius holds him up, his hands cool on Bastian’s wrists, their faces inches apart as Cassius speaks indecipherably to my grandmother.
“Little witch, I’m Bastian DeZaiffe...no!” He grins at Cassius, and Cassius looks like he could kill his new brother. “I’m Bastian Delacroix.”
“You’re going to be Bastian The Death of Me.” Cassius sighs, his chocolate eyes like a fountain, warming at the sound of Bastian’s thought.
“Is he dead?” Grandma asks.
“Only sleeping,” Bastian says, swallowing the drunken laugh that begged to come out.
And then there she is, right in front of him, staring like he’s the moon in the sky. Cassius holds Bastian tighter, the drunk blood pumping faster through his veins, taking a stronger hold on him. No, I thought, don’t go.
“Bastian Delacroix?” she asks, studying, and if I was in charge of this body, she would be taking my breath away, my beautiful little grandmother, just a child full of sass and wonder. She points up to him, tapping him on the nose.
Cassius yells something Bastian doesn’t understand and then, “Get back!”
“Cora, I apologize for how rude my brother is,” Bastian chuckles, causing Grandma to giggle. I remember this part, it’s getting close.
Bastian closes his eyes, light-headedness taking hold of him, the fog capturing his limbs as Cassius holds him up, and Grandma inhales a deep breath, her eyes filling with force.
“There’s something here that will change everything. You will change everything.” My grandmother giggles, and Bastian’s eyes fly open as he places a hand over his heart with a laugh.
“I will?” he asks, then states, “I will!”
“Thank you, Cora,” Bastian says and tries moving his legs toward Grandma, but Cassius’s grip is too tight.
“It must unfold just as it should. I cannot meddle or get involved. But both of our futures are in its path. Breaking generational curses…I can’t see it clearly, but that’s what you must do. A child will need you. The most unexpected child. He will see.”
Almost there, and he’s doing so well, he’s going to remember, he’s going to remember.
But then the blood booms in his ear like a heartbeat, a throb that takes control of his senses.
He says something to my grandmother, but I don’t understand what, and his eyes close, yet his mouth moves.
It’s like slow motion, that robotic voice that’s stretched so far from a slowed speed, all you want to do is hit fast forward for it to make sense.
She’s at his ear, and he’s tipping down to her, but the blood beating is so deafeningly loud, and I focus so hard to just hear a portion.
“When the sun can shine on the vampire. And the witch is tied to the pyre…” and then it goes out, the end trailing off to nothingness, Bastian losing focus, and Grandma’s turning as Cassius yells for her to step away, and Bastian’s leg crumbles from under him, the stars enveloping his vision, the night fading to black, the moment gone along with my grandmother, halfway down the alley.